From: Peter_Constable@sil.org
Date: Fri May 09 2003 - 23:08:31 EDT
> >* How will we treat compound signs, i.e. character sequences made up of
> >two or more signs written one after the other but treated as one
grapheme?
The question of digraphs seems to come up regularly, on average maybe once
a quarter (or more?). The answer is always the same: "character sequences
made up of two or more signs written one after the other" will be
represented as characeter sequences.
I just happened to be reviewing a paper one of my colleagues working in
Papua New Guinea had written -- a paper presented at the 1994 meeting of
the PNG Linguistics Society on orthographies of PNG languages. He
documented the following multigraphs used in Papua New Guinea languages:
'k, 'm, 'n, 'v, 'w, 'W, 'y, :aa, :Aa, :u, :U, :uu, :Uu, aa, Aa, AA, ae, Ae,
Ah, ah, ai, Ai, an, An, ao, Ao, au, Au, b', B', bw, Bw, by, By, ch, Ch, Cw,
dr N, dz, Dz, ee, Ee, eh, Eh, ei, Ei, en, En, eu, Eu, fw, Fw, gb, Gb, gh,
Gh, ghw, Ghw, gl, Gl, gw, Gw, hl, Hl, hr, Hr, hw, Hw, hy, Hy, ih, ii, Ii,
in, In, iy, Iy, jw, Jw, kg, kh, Kh, kl, Kl, kp, Kp, kw, Kw, KW, ky, Ky, ld,
Ld, lh, ll, Ll, LL, lt, ly, Ly, mb, Mb, mbw, Mbw, mm, Mm, mp, Mp, mpw, Mpw,
mw, Mw, my, My, nb, nd, Nd, Ndr, ndr, nG, ng, Ng, NG, ngg, Ngg, nggw, Nggw,
ngh, Ngw, ngw, nj, Nj, nk, Nk, nkw, Nkw, nky, Nky, nn, Nn, nq, Nq, nr, Nr,
nt, Nt, nty, Nty, nw, ny, Ny, nz, Nz, oi, Oi, on, On, oo, Oo, ou, Ou, Ou O,
pm, pw, Pw, py, Py, qw, Qw, rh, rr, Rr, RR, sh, Sh, sw, Sw, sy, Sy, th, Th,
tn, ts, Ts, tt, ty, Ty, uh, ui, Ui, un, Un, uu, Uu, uw, Uw, vw, Vw, vy, Vy,
wh, yl, yn, yw, ää, Ää, æ, êê, ëë, Ëë, ñj, ôô, öö, Öö, ŋg, Ŋg, ŋq, Ŋq, ŋw,
Ŋw, ʔw, Ḡw, ḡw
That was the result of research "in progress". One could come up with a
similarly lengthy but different list looking at (say) West Africa.
- Peter
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Peter Constable
Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
Tel: +1 972 708 7485
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